balancing the workflow between ears and eyes

[NoAffiliation]

art of any type is a constant learning process, and sometimes philosophies not directly related to art or music can be beneficial to our understanding of what we're trying to achieve and even our lives in general

about a year ago i was starting working in a program called resolume, creating real-time visuals to accompany my new liveset. I'm noticing how all the parameters are almost identical to what i'm used to using in audio software. Let me preface that I have limited experience in graphic art (i am however a highly creative person in general not specific to music). Anyway, after a few weeks of diving into the program i'm creating some pretty wicked sh!t and thinking to myself, how is it possible i can get on this graphic software and make stuff looking this good when its taken me years of working with audio software to get results im happy about.

So i'm thinking about how sight for most humans is a predominant sense. My technical side has issues with this as I have repeatedly proven to myself the balance in the natural world with various things i've studied, so i know there's more to it, that im missing something.

Then I realize that we can see sound visually but we absolutely cannot hear what we see in a way that's at all meaningful.you can look at a waveform in various ways of a sound and know everything about it, you can even "know" how it sounds to an extent. there is no tool in the world that will play me a tone that will tell me the color of the bathroom in my aparment

I believe many of these threads about how it to get this or that sound will vanish if people can adopt a workflow where they are in control of the audio visually. For instance, if i wanted to rid my clap of a peak, i would throw an oscilloscope after the plugin and change the instrument parameters until i had a nice looking waveform with no peak. It's amazing how the slightest tweak of a filter or any parameter can all of a sudden create huge peaks that you likely will never hear unless you look at it. In the case if you were just going by ear, you could spend hours trying to fix the sound with a compressor or you could just make the sound perfect in the first place by looking and knowing it was right on

Same thing goes for mixing. I will mix a track to spec from the get-go, usually starting with the low and working my way up, the whole time im watching the spectrum analyzer and osc scope as i create the music. not only does this allow me to separate sounds in the writing phase but the mix ends up being balanced so once i have 20 channels i don't have to go back and deal with anything. this same concept applies to individual sound design. Oscilloscopes are invaluable for fine tuning decays of sounds, most people make their kicks way too long because they can't hear it in their studio and it ends up clouding up the whole mix. just a few moments of looking and an osc scope and this is not an issue ever again

always use the balance between your ears and what you're seeing. I also urge people to not just go by the default settings on things like spectrum analyzers since they usually default to a very "smoothed" out generalized graph, usually there are options to view in 32bits so you can literally see every frequency and their relative amplitudes in the mix. Take a reference track and start zooming in and start seeing the music

[jessejames]

Adding an oscilloscope was one of the best things I ever did. It is extremely revealing and absolutely lets me take control of my envelopes in ways I never could before.

[Ingemar]

what kind of ocilloscopes do you guys use? I tried a software one that I couldn't get to work, but I figured it would be annoying to keep alt-tabbing between my daw and the oscilloscope program - do you use hardware? Any tips?

[kdgh]

when u're clueless about your mix.
just put off your screen monitor and grab a piece of paper and a pen.
write down everything that comes in mind and edit it later on.

without the visual excitement of parameters, you'll be forced to listen!

[tone-def]

i actually started using a spectrum analyzer a few days ago, and the mix i did is sounding a lot better because of it. i had only really used them to find problem frequencies when EQing but can see myself using them a lot more.

[jessejames]

what kind of ocilloscopes do you guys use? I tried a software one that I couldn't get to work, but I figured it would be annoying to keep alt-tabbing between my daw and the oscilloscope program - do you use hardware? Any tips?

I use the smexoscope.

http://bram.smartelectronix.com/plugins.php?id=4

Not sure what your workflow is like but here's a tip based on my experience. I sometimes use a Korg ESX and will devise a pattern and then export these sounds to my DAW. So before I export I always check each individual sound with the smexoscope (among other tools) so see what the envelope looks like. Like the OP stated, the sound may sound great but then upon inspection with the smex I can see a nasty peak or a less than desirable looking waveform. When I say "less than desirable" this is based on my own experience. So I know what a "great" kick drum looks like; the shape and length of the decay for example. Or if the transient looks weak. So before I export I will fix this on the ESX, ensuring I capture the best possible sound from the unit.

Also something that I think is key is being able to check for phase issues with the smex. So I will send the kick and bass to a bus and put the smex there. You can see right away if there are any phase issues and fix them right up! This may or may not be something that is audible, at least noticeably. Our ears are not all the same. Some have more experience than others and can maybe hear minute phasing differences. Using the smex is a foolproof way of knowing for sure.

[steevio]

great post from no affilliation,

this is exactly how i work, oscilloscope permenantly inline. they are invaluable for production.

think of it as a microscope for sound

get into the waveforms, thats where its at. when you understand waveforms, you understand sound.

[Ingemar]

thanks Jesse! my workflow does not feature hardware sampling a lot, but I will definitly try and make use of the smexoscope!